ImSET: Impact of Sector Energy Technologies

Abstract

SummaryThis version of the Impact of Sector Energy Technologies (ImSET) model represents the next generation of the previously developed Visual Basic model (ImBUILD 2.0) that was developed in 2003 to estimate the macroeconomic impacts of energy-efficient technology in buildings. More specifically, a special-purpose version of the Benchmark National Input-Output (I-O) model was designed specifically to estimate the national employment and income effects of the deployment of Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)-developed energy-saving technologies. In comparison with the previous versions of the model, this version allows for more complete and automated analysis of the essential features of energy efficiency investments in buildings, industry, transportation, and the electric power sectors. ImSET is also easier to use than extant macroeconomic simulation models and incorporates information developed by each of the EERE offices as part of the requirements of the Government Performance and Results Act. While it does not include the ability to model certain dynamic features of markets for labor and other factors of production featured in the more complex models, for most purposes these excluded features are not critical. The analysis is credible as long as the assumption is made that relative prices in the economy would not be substantially affected by energy efficiency investments. In most cases, the expected scale of these investments is small enough that neither labor markets nor production cost relationships should seriously affect national prices as the investments are made. The exact timing of impacts on gross product, employment, and national wage income from energy efficiency investments is not well-enough understood that much special insight can be gained from the additional dynamic sophistication of a macroeconomic simulation model. Thus, we believe that this version of ImSET is a cost-effective solution to estimating the economic impacts of the development of energyefficient technologies. . iv

ImSET 3.1: Impact of Sector Energy Technologies Model Description and User's Guide

“…Where possible, we attempted to reproduce and compare the results of those studies using Version 3.1 of ImSET. This exercise is similar to ones conducted for previous versions of the ImSET model (see, for example, Roop et al 2005). Our conclusions generally remain the same.…”

“…The Nayak study was designed to examine the impact of two major policy changes to a federal government energy strategy proposal that Nayak (2005) where the in the sectors where the sector definitions were very similar-e.g., coal mining, electricity utilities, construction, wholesale and retail trade, and finance (Roop et al 2005). However, in comparing ImSET 2.0 and ImSET 3, we have noticed that sectoral employment intensities per dollar of output dropped significantly (perhaps 20 percent) between the 1997 and 2002 U.S. I-O tables, so the fact that ImSET 3 shows lower employment multipliers than we observe in Nayak (2005) is not surprising.…”

“…Version 3.1 of ImSET uses essentially the same methodology as the previous version (see Roop et al 2005), but has redefined several sectors of the economy to match the 2002 national I-O table. The major updates to ImSET are as follows:…”

Assessing National Employment Impacts of Investment in Residential and Commercial Sector Energy Efficiency: Review and Example Analysis

“…The business-as-usual (BAU) case of energy demand already assumes a certain amount of energy savings and energy efficiency-induced jobs due to existing building codes and appliance standards, industry improvement, and implicit programs (EPRI, 2009), so our energy efficiency net job gains are additional jobs above and beyond this implicit baseline level. This report is an update to Roop et al (2005). The report describes some enhanced flexibility to the ImSET model brought about by recoding from FORTRAN to C++.…”

“…It has been used both to assess scenarios of adopting specific building energy technologies and the economic impacts of DOE's entire energy efficiency program, including non-building components. Roop et al 2005 andScott et al 2009). The jobs multipliers estimated in this study are summarized in Table 3.5 in Section 3.3.…”